LAUSD auto-shop students to try their hand at restoring vintage tractor

It runs and it’s drivable — but that’s about all that can be said for the 1956 Farmall 300 tractor donated Tuesday to the auto shop class at San Fernando High.

By the end of the school year, however, the agricultural workhorse should look, and run, as good as the day it rolled off the International Harvester assembly line. To get to that point, it’s going to take some mechanical know-how — and a lot of elbow grease.

Russell Martin, who started San Fernando’s auto shop program in 1993, plans to cherry-pick about 20 of his 150 students to work on the school’s first-ever farm-machinery project.

“It’s going to need a paint job and tires and engine work and brakes,” he said. “It’s going to be equal to working on an antique or vintage car.”

The tractor and a check for $1,000 were given to the school by the California International Harvester Collectors Foundation, the charitable arm of the organization’s West Coast chapter. Farmers looking to get rid of an aging tractor can give it to the IH Collectors club which, in turn, donates the equipment to local schools to restore.

Tuesday’s donation of a tractor previously owned by a Santa Rosa farmer was arranged by El Segundo businessman Terry Spahr, a longtime friend of Martin’s and a member of the IH Collectors’ board.

“Our group is about providing knowledge and education and finances, which is what the $1,000 check is for,” Spahr said. “We’re keeping the thoughts of antique tractors alive and giving kids a chance to see something they’ve never seen before.”

It’s appropriate, somehow, that the tractor has found a new home at San Fernando High. In the early part of the 20th century, the region was known as the “agricultural gem” of the San Fernando Valley, with thousands of acres of orange and lemon groves.

This is the 19th tractor the collectors’ group has donated to a school. Spahr said some groups have sold the restored tractors and used the proceeds to fund scholarships or future projects — something Martin said he’d like to do.

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Spahr said he thinks the San Fernando students will have a deeper appreciation of the two-ton Farmall by the time their work is complete.

“A tractor is totally unique from all other restoration projects,” said Spahr, who also collects classic cars and fire engines. “These tractors — they are really beautiful pieces of engineering.”